


The Truth Will Set You Free (So I'll Just Keep Lying)

by misura



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: M/M, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-27
Updated: 2010-09-27
Packaged: 2017-10-18 17:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When he's having a bad week, Bryce sneaks into the bathroom while Chuck is taking a shower and steals his socks.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Truth Will Set You Free (So I'll Just Keep Lying)

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt by captanddeastar who suggested I might write a Five Times Bryce (Almost) Told Chuck the Truth (While at Stanford) kind of fic. (Kind of is about right. Ahem.)

Bryce lies to Chuck pretty much all the time, from their first meeting.

What he says is: _'You should meet this girl.'_

What he means is: _'You should tell me you're not interested in girls.'_

 

Truth is a relative term, of course, they tell him when he gets recruited into the CIA, and he manages not to ask if maybe he took a wrong turn somewhere, if maybe if this is the introduction course for future lawyers or accountants or journalists, perhaps.

He doesn't learn how to kill people, not right away. That's one of the advanced courses.

Learning where to apply pressure to make someone pass out, or where to kick someone to make sure that someone stays down, or why you should never break a vase over someone's head when you can get them with a baseball bat instead (an umbrella might do in a pinch, a rolled-up newspaper is advised against) - that's just self-defense. It's not about killing people; it's about keeping yourself safe.

When you lie to the people you love, they tell him, it's not about concealing the truth.

It's about keeping _them_ safe.

 

Bryce tells Chuck the truth pretty much all the time, from their first meeting.

What he says is: _'You should meet this girl.'_

What he doesn't say is: _'You should live a normal life.'_

 

The thing is: Bryce doesn't think it matters, in the end. Chuck's got a life and it's not what Bryce thinks of as entirely normal, but then again, his basis of comparison is probably rather flawed.

He offers to teach Chuck how to dance. He doesn't offer to press their bodies close together and stare deeply into Chuck's eyes as if he's trying to decide whether or not they're suitable for drowning in. (They haven't yet covered seduction in the CIA course, but anyway, Bryce feels he can think whatever he wants so long as he doesn't say the really embarrassing stuff out loud, like how sometimes, he'll rise early just so he can watch Chuck stumble around the room with bedhair.)

"So," Chuck says, because he's terrible under pressure - always has been, always will be. "How are you and uh - that girl you've been seeing?"

"Paula." Bryce doesn't know if Paula's his current excuse for going off by himself sometimes, when being around Chuck gets to be a little too much, or if she's his CIA contact. Chuck's presence has a peculiar effect on his ability to think sometimes.

"Paula," Chuck repeats. "Yes! Paula! Everything all right there?"

"Everything's great," Bryce says. On some level, he thinks, Chuck must _know_.

"Great," Chuck says, dully, before he seems to realize some more enthusiasm is called for. "I mean: that's great! You're not teaching me the girl's part, are you?"

 

When he's having a bad week, Bryce sneaks into the bathroom while Chuck is taking a shower and steals his socks. (Stealing Chuck's underwear might give him a better view, he thinks, only it would be _stealing Chuck's underwear_ , and that just sounds several kinds of wrong.)

"Sorry, forgot my socks." Chuck comes padding out of the bathroom wearing a towel and a sheepish expression that Bryce knows actually isn't called for.

"Just don't drip on my computer," he says, watching Chuck's reflection in the strategically placed mirror that allows him to watch without being obvious about it, feeling like a spy and afterwards, a little sick, too, like maybe he should be feeling ashamed of himself. (He isn't.)

 

Bryce knows he's competitive. He likes playing games, but not as much as he likes winning them. He's not sure if he'd even play if he knew he wasn't going to win - and maybe that's just what's been drilled into him at the track team, or maybe it's what that guy in that movie said, about how you can either come in first place or not (there's medals for second and third place at track, only real life isn't like track, and if he's not Chuck's boyfriend then he's not Chuck's boyfriend).

He kills Chuck over a hundred times - in the library, playing _Gotcha!_ ; on the screen of the cheap TV Chuck's buddy back in Burbank has found for him, playing whatever videogame they're playing on any given evening; on the Internet, in a world full of strangers wearing other faces.

"Sometimes, I get the feeling you really don't like me very much," Chuck says.

The accusation might sting a little, but it's a lazy Summer's afternoon, and they're both drowsing on the couch in front of their cheap TV, neither of them paying particularly much attention to the movie they've both seen a dozen times before (the princess gets rescued in the end and the hero doesn't get the girl because bummer! she turns out to be his sister).

Chuck's head is resting on Bryce's chest and Bryce's arms are sort of halfway around Chuck's body in a gesture neither of them will ever refer to as an embrace, although Chuck might call it a hug and say it's okay, that he likes a hug sometimes.

Bryce thinks. "Only sometimes?" He could move his head only a few inches and be kissing Chuck, just like that. Chuck would never see it coming.

"Funny," Chuck says, his tone adding the _'not!'_.

Bryce would have to agree.


End file.
